


we came along this road

by Zara



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 14:19:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zara/pseuds/Zara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shireen is pregnant and worries that her child will inherit her greyscale. Ficlet based on a prompt given on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we came along this road

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt given impulsively on tumblr by a-monsterous-roar.

Shireen’s pregnancy is frightening.

Only a few moons after her and Rickon are wed, Shireen realizes that she misses her moon-blood. One night, when she is ready, she tells her husband just so. She is lying on her back and he leans up on his elbow, long fingers gently stroking her sides and ghosting over her breasts.

When he hears, his expression remains firm for a moment. He does not look at her, but stares down at her belly, moving his fingers to stroke that instead. Then he looks up at her—wild hair and wild eyes—and smiles. He kisses her lips and pulls her naked body flush against his, tucking her under his chin and kissing her hair. Rickon is happy. Shireen is terrified.

As the pregnancy progresses, she begins to ponder on becoming a mother. _It would be a boy_ , she hopes, a little prince who looked like Rickon and not at all like her; with big freckled cheeks and tawny red hair and big blue eyes. She should pray that her child wouldn’t have the misfortune of getting Stannis’ jaw or the Florent ears. But really, she only prays that her child didn’t develop greyscale the way she did.

At seven moons her belly is swollen and her breasts are so tender that they ache. Rickon tries to ease her discomfort as much as he possibly could, but she always feels fatigued, and she is worried for her child, her babe, and nothing could cure that.

Shireen leans back in a chair in Meera’s chambers as she watches Meera and Bran’s twins, not yet two years old, play with their mother. She rubs the side of her belly as she feels the babe kick it, winces slightly yet strokes reassuringly, and hopes for her child’s good health, just like Bran and Meera’s babes.

She is not yet nine moons when she goes into labour. The pain is like nothing she’s ever felt, but she does not scream or cry aloud. Rickon, delayed by his duties, comes into her chambers hours into the labour. A handmaiden is wiping her sweaty face with a cool washcloth, and Rickon comes to grip her hand.

He kisses her forehead and then places his own against it. “Just breathe, my love, I’m here. You’ll be fine.”

 _It’s early_ , she wants to shout. _It’s too early, please, I can’t do this. I can’t. I’m not ready._

When she feels the babe and the maester tells her to push, she whimpers and bites her lip. The handmaidens and the maester encourage her with calm words, assuring her that she’s nearly done. Shireen sees red.

The babe’s cries are piercing throughout her chambers and suddenly she’s aware of Rickon stroking her dark hair, the handmaidens wiping the child clean of the blood they both share, the stinging ache between her thighs.

Shireen sees red.

Shireen sees white.

Shireen sees black.

She wakes a day later and sees Rickon cradling the babe—their child—in his arms. He sits across the room, and when he hears the rustling of her furs, he smiles and stands and walks towards her.

“A girl,” Rickon whispers as he places the babe in the crook of her arm. “I have a name for her, if it’s alright.”

She is initially disappointed—she wanted to give her husband his heir, the people would like her better for it—but eventually she finds she does not care; for she pulls slightly at the blanket and inspects her babe’s skin. There is no grey—none at all. There is only a small fluff of black hair and, when her eyes open, a sapphire blue that mirror Shireen’s own.

Her daughter is a Baratheon.

“I thought to name her Nerissa.” Rickon says. Shireen grins widely, at the name, at the fact that she is here, with her husband and her child.

Then she bites her lip with worry. “I…I don’t know how to be a mother.”

“I don’t know how to be a father.” There is fervor behind the Tully blue irises of Rickon’s eyes; one that dissipates as quickly as it came. “I don’t remember my father, no matter how much I try to. But I wish to be a good father to her, the way I imagine my father would have been to me. And you—” Rickon strokes her left cheek, her dead cheek, with love in his eyes. “You will be a fine mother. We will be great parents, you’ll see. We’ll work at it together.”

\---

Their daughter grows looking extremely Baratheon. Now aged four, Princess Nerissa Stark closely resembles Arya and Gendry’s second daughter, as well as Shireen’s recently discovered cousin, Mya Stone.

While she is physically Baratheon, everything else about her is purely Stark. Nerissa grows with a fire in her soul, one she happens to inherit from her father. She is not a little lady like Sansa’s daughter Calista, or a fierce warrior like Arya’s daughter Nymeria, or a quiet, smiling girl like Meera’s daughter Rayna.

Nonetheless, Nerissa is patient and full of wit, with a quiet strength and a great enthusiasm. She clings to her father at times, but it is Shireen who she stands by, in the end. She adores her aunt Arya, will only wear boots with her gowns (like father’s, she says), and loves to swim in the pool in the godswood.

Shireen strokes her swollen belly and watches her husband carry Nerissa’s sleeping form back to the castle. Shifting her onto one shoulder, Rickon holds out his hand to grasp her own. Her heart flutters. Once upon a time, when she had first seen Winterfell, she was ready to run away with Edric to the free cities and escape her betrothal.

Now, she is grateful for everything she has—for a family that is whole and loving and beautiful. This was something she never got to experience as a girl, though she loved her lord father and her lady mother dearly, there was something cold between them. But here, in a kingdom of ice, warmth spreads in her veins. Though she had never imagined it could be, Shireen is, conclusively, happy.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: The name Nerissa means "black of hair" and it's different and I thought it was fitting.


End file.
